AN: Hi all! I'm currently marathoning Leverage, and had a random thought about how nice it might be to wake up to the Leverage boys ;) The thought picked up context and backstory and then became...this. First time publishing, just testing the waters; tell me what you think! Thanks for reading.
I woke up, blinking and then squinting against a ray of sun that shone directly across my face. The bed I was on sat in front of a window. In the corner of my vision, two men stood conversing with each other near the wooden door of what could only be called the bedchamber- the walls were flagstone and decorated with actual sconces. What the hell? I started to turn my face from the window, only to discover that that hurt- as did, I realized, a slew of other things on my body. It felt like I'd twisted an ankle, there was a stinging pain so familiar it could only be from a scraped knee, my tailbone hurt like I'd dropped onto a bicycle from thirty feet in the air, and the headache building in my skull drowned out any other injuries afflicting my upper body.
Wincing from the many pains, withholding a groan, I eased my head over to my left shoulder to get a better look at those men. One at least six feet and the other considerably shorter, they faced each other and murmured indistinctly about something that seemed to be very serious. The taller one, near the door, was lean and dark with striking features decorated with a mustache and goatee. He seemed to be mostly listening to and nodding at his muscular, scruffy white companion whose shoulder-length brown hair gave him a huggable look, but whose impressive scowl when he turned to peer at me made me question getting any closer than I was. Hugs?! I need to think about getting OUT of here, I don't know what these dudes want, where AM I- my brow creased as a memory hit me: the tall man diving toward me on the ground to cover me with his body as the ground shakes with another explosion. The strong one pulling me into his arms, cradling me against him and carrying me away after the last of the bombs went off.
Bombs?!
The thought barely registered before my heart started hammering and I began scrambling to sit upright, but the memory of an apparent air strike might not have caused that so much as the shorter man telling his friend, "She's up," and starting to walk toward me. "Don't try to get up," he instructed, voice gravelly, nearly a whisper. "With the hit you took from the explosion, you're gonna need to lie down for a few days."
Coming to stand just closer than the other man, my human shield must have seen the alarm in my expression. "Don't worry- you're safe here." His appealing face broke into a boyish grin. "With the work I've put into this place, no tracking system could find us here."
The angry teddy bear turned to the younger man in a huff. "Damnit, Hardison, what did I say about that? Don't go tempting fate- you don't know that this place is really secure-"
"Here we go again; look, stop pointing that finger in my face like that, you know nobody around here has the kind of tech I got, man, you need to believe in me-"
"-all I'm saying, is that you HAVEN'T tested this against every GPS there is, man, if you're gonna say-"
"-Eliot, listen, this girl needs reassurance at a time like this and-Parker! Tell Eliot he needs to start trusting me..."
The squabbling went on as my vision started to dim and I blinked rapidly through a wave of dizziness. The last thing I remember thinking before everything went black was, Did that blond girl just drop from the ceiling? And why aren't these dudes wearing shirts?
END